News

New survey highlights alarming attitudes to rape

A major new study by the End Violence Against Women Coalition has found that an alarming number of adults across the UK are unclear about what rape is.

The survey, of 4,000 people, found that:

•A third (33%) of people in Britain think it isn’t usually rape if a woman is pressured into having sex but there is no physical violence •A third of men think if a woman has flirted on a date it generally wouldn’t count as rape, even if she hasn’t explicitly consented to sex (compared with 21% of women) •A third of men also believe a woman can’t change her mind after sex has started •Almost a quarter (24%) think that sex without consent in long-term relationships is usually not rape